Taxation is the financial backbone of every modern society. It enables the redistribution of resources, supports social welfare, and funds essential infrastructure and services like schools, hospitals, roads, public transport, and emergency services. Broader initiatives like environmental protection, scientific research, and public libraries also depend on tax revenue. It is thus not surprising that taxation is a frequent topic of conversation among people, both professionals and laypeople. These conversations can range from casual remarks about high tax rates and complicated procedures to serious debates about progressive tax rates. Despite taxes being present next to everywhere, tax-related communication has rarely been studied. This dissertation of Žiga Puklavec aims to explore what people talk about when they talk about taxes.

The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part examines communication about taxes on social media. The findings reveal that most online conversation focus on seeking or offering help with tax-related issues, highlighting the importance of good taxpayer services. Moreover, messages that include moral content, as well as positive content, are more likely to be shared with others. The second part looks at how researchers talk about, or study, the concept of tax morale. Tax morale is often seen as an important predictor of people’s compliance with their tax obligations. The dissertation contributes to this literature by showing how this concept, mostly studied within economics, is related to psychological theories of morality. It also reveals that tax morale is defined and measured in many different ways, making it challenging to summarize findings across different studies.

In summary, the dissertation provides new insights into how both laypeople and researchers communicate about taxation. It draws theoretical and practical implications for improving communication with taxpayers and suggests ways to improve future research on tax morale. In addition, it introduces methodologies that are novel to tax research, potentially offering interesting avenues for future research. The dissertation gives insight into what people talk about, when they talk about taxes.

Puglavic defended his dissertation 4th of July at Tilburg University. Supervisors: prof. dr. Marcel Zeelenberg, prof. dr. Olga Stavrova and dr. Christoph Kogler.

Žiga Puklavec
Talking About Taxes 

De dissertatie is verkrijgbaar via: 
research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/talking-about-taxes